Arthur Fleming Morrell

Captain Arthur Fleming Morrell (10 November 1788 – 13 September 1880) was a British officer of the Royal Navy, an explorer, and Commandant of Ascension Island, who saw service spanning the end of the Napoleonic era and well into the Victorian era.

Early life Arthur Morrell was born in 1788 in Stoke Damerel, Devon, the second son of a Royal Navy lieutenant, John Morrell. His father had been an able seaman, rising to the warrant officer's rank of gunner by the time his sons entered the Royal Navy.

Career

Royal Navy Morrell's brother was John Arthur Morrell, who became a commander and served aboard during an 1806 attack on Naples, then held by Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte. Morrell joined the Royal Navy at the age of about twelve or thirteen as a first class volunteer. He served first on , a 38-gun fifth rate ship in the Channel fleet that took several French ships as prizes during the years Morrell served on her.

He then moved to the Caribbean on board , and was by now a master's mate. It was aboard Pique, a captured French ship formerly named Pallas, that he would take part in the blockade of Saint-Domingue in 1803, serving off Cape Francois. A boat from the Pique, commanded by Lieutenant Nesbit Willoughby, was dispatched to capture the as she fled the rebellious Haitians led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Morrell was part of the crew that brought Clorinde under a British flag to Jamaica. The voyage was unsuccessful, but Morrell would later be awarded the Arctic Medal, 1818–55. Captain David Buchan commanded HMS Dorothea, while Morrell served as first lieutenant. The Dorothea was accompanied by , commanded by John Franklin.

As first lieutenant, Morrell kept a detailed log book which provided meteorological observations and navigational notes. The expedition eventually failed to penetrate thick pack ice. The expedition returned to England without having achieved its goal. It would be nearly 40 years before Arctic exploration would be recognized, and in 1856 the Arctic Medal was struck and issued retroactively for various polar voyages starting with 1818, the year of Buchan's expedition.

Ascension Island After a brief period commanding , which included successfully interdicting slave ships off the west coast of Africa, Morrell, now a commander, was in 1844 appointed Commandant of Ascension Island, an island in the Atlantic that held strategic value to Britain, due to its proximity to both Africa and South America. They had eight children together, of whom six would survive into adulthood.

Anna Harriett Cumberland Pellew Morrell Lucy Elizabeth Haynes Morrell, who later married Scottish surgeon and botanist Edward George Irving Charles Walter Morrell Eliza Truman Morrell George Truman Morrell, explorer and later a commander in the Royal Navy Arthur Morrell, later a rear admiral in the Royal Navy Eliza Mary Anne Morrell Isabella Cunard Morrell

Morrell returned to sea service in 1843, on being given command of .